This debate is concerning the existence of God. It is to be assumed that God does exist. And therefore, the burden of proof is on the Con.

Requirements:

1. I will be referring to the Christian God in the Biblical sense, but the argument will be solely for the existence of God.

2. It is to be assumed that God does exist.

3. The Bible is assumed to be true. (If you would like to challenge the authority of the Bible it must be done in round one acceptance)

4. Arguments must be organized and presented in a linear format.

Final Note:

I find it undeniable that God exists. If you do not believe, then it is your obligation to defend your belief. I challenge the Con to prove that God does not exist. If the Con cannot prove that God does not exist, the Con loses. It is that simple.

Though there seems to be consensus among the commentators that Pro has the rules unfairly stacked in his own favor, I accept the debate, and I ask that voters have equity, or else the debate remains sabotaged by the instigator. I accept the burden of proof, because I think there needs to be a good case presented for why certainty in non-existence is sometimes a more reasonable position than uncertainty.

My position

My position is that the gods do not objectively exist, but the gods exists merely in the subjective environment of human minds as thought patterns transmitted among people through verbal communication in evolving and branching succession. This model of the gods does not necessarily replace the position that gods objectively exist, but, at the very least, it would accompany the position that gods objectively exist. It is already obvious that beliefs concerning the gods evolve according to what is most likely to be believed and evangelized, much like viruses evolve by natural selection. But, my contention is indeed that this model of the gods serves in large part to effectively replace the position that the gods objectively exist, and I am willing to make my case.

Criterion of plausibility

To help my case, I stand behind the criterion of plausibility. Using this well-accepted criterion, I assert that it is possible to prove a negative.

The academic C. Behan McCullagh [1] defines the criterion of plausibility like so:

"The hypothesis must be more plausible than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must be implied to some degree by a greater variety of accepted truths than any other, and be implied more strongly than any other; and its probable negation must be implied by fewer beliefs, and implied less strongly than any other."

To illustrate this criterion, suppose Bertrand Russell claims, without any other special evidence, that a teapot is orbiting the Sun between the orbits of Earth and Mars. Since this claim is not implied to any significant degree by accepted truths, the claim is practically impossible. There is no known reason for fragile kitchen utensils to be launched into such an orbit, and no such fragile kitchen utensils have been observed in outer space, so the claim is not simply uncertain. Because of the criterion of plausibility, the claim is improbable enough to be rejected as false. If, on the other hand, Bertrand Russell claimed that an asteroid were orbiting between Earth and Mars, the conclusion is opposite, again because of the criterion of plausibility. Even without direct evidence of a specific asteroid in such an orbit, there have been many asteroids observed orbiting the Sun, and there is a known cosmological mechanism for such an orbit to come about.

Challenging the authority of the Bible

I will illustrate the criterion again by fulfilling Pro's request that I challenge the authority of the Bible. The Gospel of Luke 2:1-4 (NRSV) states:

"In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David."

The claim of this passage is that Augustus required all inhabitants of the empire to register for the census in their ancestral towns. This is a very strong problem of plausibility, because (1) it would require that millions of people embark on a chaotic pilgrimage to their ancestral home towns, including all of the Jews of the Hellenistic diaspora about the Mediterranean Sea [2], but (2) there is no other ancient record of such pilgrimages having taken place, not even other Christian gospels, (3) the competing explanation, that the Christian community of the gospel of Luke uncritically accepted and asserted the false belief in such a requirement for a historical census, has far more plausibility, because Christians contemporary to Luke had an explicit bias toward the belief that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, though Jesus was otherwise identified as being from the town of Nazareth--that is how they interpreted a messianic prophecy, and they believed Jesus to the messiah [3]. Therefore, it is for more probable that the gospel of Luke told a falsehood than to believe that the emperor required every constituent to return to his hometown for a census.

The Bible has many more severe problems of plausibility, and I will present them upon Pro's request.

The impluasibilty of God: ghostly intelligence

The Bible is implausible, but the Bible is not God, so why is God implausible? The implausibility of the objective existence of God follows from the incompatibility of the proposed nature of God with the nature of the known universe. God is hypothesized to be both omniscient [4] and omnipresent [5], or existing as both supremely intelligent and in an ethereal (non-material) form. However, every known example of intelligence requires a complex system of physical matter and energy. Greater levels of intelligence require more complexity of such a system. Insects possess minor levels of intelligence, and their intelligence follows from a relatively-low level of complexity. Marine mammals possess more intelligence, and their nervous systems are of a higher complexity. The most intelligent minds in the known universe--human minds--are based on the most complex systems of matter and energy in the known universe. The claim--that God is both maximally intelligent and requires no complex system of matter and energy--requires this strong pattern to be broken, and there is no known mechanism for this pattern to be broken. We cannot hypothesize a good reason that God can be intelligent without a complex system of matter and energy.

The problem of plausibility is much more severe when the competing explanation has much more plausibility. Getting back to my own explanation for the gods as evolving ideas, I can plausibly explain the widespread belief that God is both supremely intelligent and non-material. Both attributes seem to maximize God's reputed power, and a powerful God appeals to religious people's innate psychological tendency toward authoritarianism [6].

Therefore, the claim of the objective existence of God is severely implausible. Therefore, like Russell's teapot, God does not objectively exist.

I thank you Con for accepting. I also appreciate your quick and organized response.

Your arguments can be summarized as so:

1. God Exists in human minds through verbal communication that is modified as it is passed down.

2. The Criterion of Plausibility demonstrates that God cannot exist because there is no reason or evidence to back up the claim.

3. (On challenge of the Bible) There is no historic evidence to back up the forced registering of the census in ancestral towns.

4. God cannot exist because there is no way for us to measure His intelligence.

Again, I thank my opponent for a logical and reasonable argument.

Counter Argument

1. I agree with you. God does exist in our mind. However, I disagree with you on the modification being incorporated. I believe in Biblical Christianity, therefore, I believe in the same idea Biblicaly preserved idea of God. 2. I attempt to disband the criterion of plausibility. Allow me to show you where I stand: We exist, according to atheists there is no reason or motivational force behind the initiation of our creation. I find the criterion of plausibility to be not quite applicable to this topic because the motivation of God is not supposed to be known, but on the other hand I feel that Gods existence does fit the criterion: The God hypothesis is more plausible than any other. Evolution is the only alternative to God but Evolution still leaves out important questions such as why and how. The God hypothesis answers these questions.

3. There is historic evidence to support this Biblical claim, but in order to understand this there are clarifications to be made: a. The translation of the Bible you used is NRSV. I do not accept or use any other translation besides The King James Version, as it is the first complete translation of the entire Bible from Greek/Hebrew to English. It also has been authorized by over 186,000 Biblical scholars. I also personally use the original Greek/Hebrew manuscripts. The King James version of the Bible refers to the "registering" as a tax related pilgrimage. b. This does fit history as Augustus issued. But what of the census that Luke 2:1 speaks of? Is there any record outside of the Bible that Augustus ever issued such a decree? Yes. As a matter of fact he authorized three censuses during this reign. How do we know this? The three censuses are listed in the Acts of Augustus, a list of what Augustus thought were the 35 greatest achievements of his reign. He was so proud of the censuses that he ranked them eighth on the list. The Acts of Augustus were placed on two bronze plaques outside of Augustus's mausoleum after he died. Because your attempt at proving the Bible was a fallacy, and was based partly on a translational error, I will not allow you to propose any more attacks on the Bible.

4. God does exist because we can see His intelligence. We see His intelligence through the complexity of all creation. We have the cell, a very complex being in itself. It seems illogical that a random chance held enough order to create such an organized bit of matter.

Presentational CounterviewBecause I am old school, I will be using the "presentational counterview" application within this debate. PCV is an argumentative step used when the Pro/Con applies a theoretical principal to the opening of an argument so long as that argument is based on the existence of______. It gives the "Y" counterpart the option to provide an argument for the "Z" counterpart even if the burden of proof is on the "Z" counterpart and the "Y" counterpart is assumed. I hope you do not mind.

The argument I will present to support the existence of God will be presented after your final rebuttal of my counter argument at the end of round 2.

Therefore, you will respond to this rebuttal at the end of round 2, and I will present my argument in round 3.

Pro said that the criterion of plausibility is not quite applicable to the topic because of the motivation of God is unknown. However, my argument did not relate to the motivation of God. To restate my claim, "The implausibility of the objective existence of God follows from the incompatibility of the proposed nature of God with the nature of the known universe."

Further, Pro claimed that the hypothesis of God is more plausible than the theory of evolution, because, he claimed, the theory of evolution leaves out important questions of "Why?" and "How?". However, I counter the claim by pointing out that the theory of evolution fully and plausibly answers the question of "How?" through the observed mechanisms of reproduction, genetic mutation, variation, natural selection and speciation and through the strong inference of long periods of geological history. These mechanisms render the question of "Why?" inapplicable, because an intelligent agent is not needed. And, these observed universal mechanisms of evolution strongly constrast with the lack of any plausible mechanism for the creation function of God. The creation function of God seems to more plausibly explained than the function of a magic wand, but I invite Pro to supply a better explanation for the creation function.

More puzzlingly, Pro seems to undercut his own point with a contradiction. He states that "the motivation of God is not supposed to be known," but Pro proceeds to claim that the hypothesis of God answers the question of "Why?". An answer to any question of "Why?" necessarily entails a known motivation.

Response to Counter Argument #3

In written debates and all other public literary exercises, it is bad manners to plagiarize material from text written by someone else. In this case, Pro plagiarized a paragraph ("But what of the census that Luke 2:1 speaks of...") from an article by Richard P. Bucher titled, "Caesar Augustus, Quirinius, and the Census" (see http://www.orlutheran.com...). I understand if this action was unintended, but unintential plagiarism still counts as plagiarism. This mistake can be avoided by placing quotation marks or formatting tags about the quote and citing the source.

Even with a citation, copying from an external source may facilitate the disadvantage of missing the opponent's point. My point was that it is implausible that "Augustus required all inhabitants of the empire to register for the census in their ancestral towns." My point was NOT that it is implausible that Augustus had a census. The ancient text of The Deeds of the Divine Augustus tells of censuses by Augustus, but it contains no hint of the highly unusual requirement that all citizens travel to their ancestral home towns (see http://classics.mit.edu...).

If Pro wishes that I use the KJV instead instead of the NRSV, then I agree, as it makes little or no difference to me. Regardless of whether the purpose was a census or taxation (it would have been both), the ploblem of plausibility seems equal for the claim of an empire-wide pilgrimage to ancestral towns.

Response to Counter Argument #4

Pro claims that God exists because we can see His intelligence through the complexity of creation including the cell, and Pro claims it is illogical that random chance "held enough order" to create such organization. I respond that the biological mechanisms of reproduction, mutation, variation and natural selection (not mere random chance) are sufficient to explain complexity of life. Increases in genetic complexity have been directly observed, for example, in the study, "Regulation of antigen gene expression in Trypanosoma brucei," published in Trends in Parasitology, 2005. The abstract claims: "The high recombination frequency prevailing in the telomere that harbours the active VSG expression site has been exploited by the parasite to both drive antigenic variation and generate VSG-based adaptive proteins" (see http://www.sciencedirect.com...). These highly plausible evolutionary mechanisms again contrast with the proposition of an ethereal intelligence, as I argued in Round 1.

I await Pro's arguments in the format of Presentational Counterview (I don't mind at all).

I apologize for not replying earlier but I had to deal with a few emergencies.

Summarized Rebuttal

1. Your right, it was no argument. Simply an agreeance.

2. I tried to find more information of your criterion of plausibility but could find none. However, It is important to note that Evolution does not conflict with the idea of "God". There is no known cause in Evolution and "God" gives this theory perfect "Cause".

3. I did use this work, but because of the type of website, citations are not required. MLA and APA format of literature require no such citation in the case of a website so long as the written portion is made in the essence of an informal debate with no requirements specifying the use of internal or external citations. Furthermore, Census has nothing to do with the passage of scripture refereed to. If you are interested, I would be willing to debate you on the topic of Biblical contradictions after completion of this debate.

4. As I stated earlier, (Even though I personally find evolution to be one of the most immature beliefs in the world) I cannot say that it contradicts with the idea of "God". With this being said, Evolution is not evidence against God.

Presentational Counterview

6. The Kalam Argument

The Arabic word kalam literally means "speech," but came to denote a certain type of philosophical theology—a type containing demonstrations that the world could not be infinitely old and must therefore have been created by God. This sort of demonstration has had a long and wide appeal among both Christians and Muslims. Its form is simple and straightforward.

Whatever begins to exist has a cause for its coming into being.

The universe began to exist.

Therefore, the universe has a cause for its coming into being.

Grant the first premise. (Most people—outside of asylums and graduate schools would consider it not only true, but certainly and obviously true.)

Is the second premise true? Did the universe—the collection of all things bounded by space and time—begin to exist? This premise has recently received powerful support from natural science—from so—called Big Bang Cosmology. But there are philosophical arguments in its favor as well. Can an infinite task ever be done or completed? If, in order to reach a certain end, infinitely many steps had to precede it, could the end ever be reached? Of course not—not even in an infinite time. For an infinite time would be unending, just as the steps would be. In other words, no end would ever be reached. The task would—could—never be completed.

But what about the step just before the end? Could that point ever be reached? Well, if the task is really infinite, then an infinity of steps must also have preceded it. And therefore the step just before the end could also never be reached. But then neither could the step just before that one. In fact, no step in the sequence could be reached, because an infinity of steps must always have preceded any step; must always have been gone through one by one before it. The problem comes from supposing that an infinite sequence could ever reach, by temporal succession, any point at all.

Now if the universe never began, then it always was. If it always was, then it is infinitely old. If it is infinitely old, then an infinite amount of time would have to have elapsed before (say) today. And so an infinite number of days must have been completed—one day succeeding another, one bit of time being added to what went before—in order for the present day to arrive. But this exactly parallels the problem of an infinite task. If the present day has been reached, then the actually infinite sequence of history has reached this present point: in fact, has been completed up to this point—for at any present point the whole past must already have happened. But an infinite sequence of steps could never have reached this present point—or any point before it.

So, either the present day has not been reached, or the process of reaching it was not infinite. But obviously the present day has been reached. So the process of reaching it was not infinite. In other words, the universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause for its coming into being, a Creator.

Question 1: Christians believe they are going to live forever with God. So they believe the future will be endless. How come the past cannot also be endless?

Reply: The question really answers itself. Christians believe that their life with God will never end. That means it will never form an actually completed infinite series. In more technical language: an endless future is potentially—but never actually—infinite. This means that although the future will never cease to expand and increase, still its actual extent will always be finite. But that can only be true if all of created reality had a beginning.

Question 2: How do we know that the cause of the universe still exists? Maybe it started the universe going and then ceased to be.

Reply: Remember that we are seeking for a cause of spatio-temporal being. This cause created the entire universe of space and time. And space and time themselves must be part of that creation. So the cause cannot be another spatio—temporal being. (If it were, all the problems about infinite duration would arise once again.) It must somehow stand outside the limitations and constrains of space and time.

It is hard to understand how such a being could "cease" to be. We know how a being within the universe ceases to be: it comes in time to be fatally affected by some agency external to it. But this picture is proper to us, and to all beings limited in some way by space and time. A being not limited in these ways cannot "come" to be or "cease" to be. If it exists at all, it must exist eternally.

Question 3: But is this cause God—a he and not a mere it?

Reply: Suppose the cause of the universe has existed eternally. Suppose further that this cause is not personal: that it has given rise to the universe, not through any choice, but simply through its being. In that case it is hard to see how the universe could be anything but infinitely old, since all the conditions needed for the being of the universe would exist from all eternity. But the kalam argument has shown that the universe cannot be infinitely old. So the hypothesis of an eternal impersonal cause seems to lead to an inconsistency.

Is there a way out? Yes, if the universe is the result of a free personal choice. Then at least we have some way of seeing how an eternal cause could give rise to a temporally limited effect. Of course, the kalam argument does not prove everything Christians believe about God, but what proof does? Less than everything, however, is far from nothing. And the kalam argument proves something central to the Christian belief in God: that the universe is not eternal and without beginning; that there is a Maker of heaven and earth. And in doing so, it disproves the picture of the universe most atheists wish to maintain: self—sustaining matter, endlessly changing in endless time.

As you may already assume, this argument is one taken from twenty-one different arguments presented by Peter Kreeft, a renowned Christian Apologist. I was originally going to use the Ontological Argument, but I felt that the Kalam argument was more appropriate for the way this debate was going.

Again, I apologize for taking so long to reply, and I look forward to Cons rebuttal.

I am not debating with Peter Kreeft. If Peter Kreeft cares to debate with me about the existence of God using the Kalam Cosmological Argument, then I happy to oblige, but he has made no such offer, and I take umbrage at the presumption that I should rebut the many paragraphs of Peter Kreeft where Con's own writing should be. Excessive quoting from a source, even with a citation, is another form of plagiarism. Plagiarism.org includes in a list of six types of plagiarism:

"copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not"

To reinforce my previous complaint of plagiarism, the second item in the list is:

"copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit"

If Pro is unfamiliar with these common rules of writing, then he should review that page. If he is familiar with those rules, then he should follow them. This is not an informal debate. This is a debate where the participants are judged according to common rules.

So, instead of rebuting the plagiarized text, I will instead provide a link to a rebuttal of the Kalam Argument at DBSkeptic.com.

Pro states, "It is important to note that Evolution does not conflict with the idea of 'God'. There is no known cause in Evolution and 'God' gives this theory perfect 'Cause'."

To repeat, the theory of evolution explains causes of life through known plausible mechanisms, and God has no plausible mechanisms. An implausible proposal of a cause is far from a perfect cause.

Pro states, "I cannot say that it contradicts with the idea of 'God'. With this being said, Evolution is not evidence against God."

To summarize the progress of the debate:Pro: We see God's intelligence through the complexity of all creation, including the cell.Con: The biological mechanisms of reproduction, mutation, variation and natural selection (not mere random chance) are sufficient to explain complexity of life.Pro: Evolution is not evidence against God.

Pro has forgotten that he was the one who introduced the argument pertaining to evolution. I struck down that argument, and Pro is defending against an argument that I did not make.

Back to the impluasibilty of God: ghostly intelligence

I would like to again remind Pro of my central argument from Round 1: "The implausibility of the objective existence of God follows from the incompatibility of the proposed nature of God with the nature of the known universe." I discussed the implausibility of an intelligent being without a complex system of matter and energy. Pro has failed to understand this point. In Round 2, Con misunderstood my argument as being: "God cannot exist because there is no way for us to measure His intelligence." I failed to catch this misunderstanding in Round 2, but, no, my argument is better understood as: "God cannot exist because his proposed nature is incompatible with the established pattern of observation that intelligence must emerge only from a complex system of matter and energy." I ask that Con review that portion of Round 1 and answer it properly.

My opponent has provided not even an attempt to refute my last argument.

I have simply stated an argument, and idea. This idea came from Peter Kreeft, just as your idea came from Behan McCullagh. You have charged me with your very own offenses and for this, I am umbraged. I do hope this will be considered during the voting period as it is an excuse my opponent has provided, and it is time that has been wasted, in regards to this argument.

There are no rules whatsoever that state I cannot use an argument.

Because my opponent has failed to challenge my argument (one that I will continue to present, as it is my belief), I will hold it as it is until my opponent properly refutes it.

I extend all of my arguments. Pro has one more round to properly address (1) the implausibility of ghostly intelligence and (2) the argument about the plausibility of the mechanisms of evolution to explain life. I still have some faith remaining that he is able to do this without needing to plagiarize.

What a shame. My opponent has failed to acknowledge my argument even after stating he would accept it in round 2. My opponent has then accused me of plagiarism when he himself has done so too. Truth be told, my opponent cannot argue with the evidence I presented earlier. The Kalam argument is sound and superb. My opponent realizes that there is no such rebuttal that can effectively be presented against this argument. In final response to my opponents arguments. (1) Plagiarism, and (2) Plagiarism. Those two arguments presented by my opponent are plagiarized. Then again, aren't all of our thoughts plagiarized in some way?

I wanted a debate about the existence of God not an argument about plagiarism.

I am thoroughly disappointed.

However, I have faith that my opponent can still turn this around and present an argument to my Kalam theory.

Conduct: Both shown reasonable conduct
Spelling: Sorry to be maticulous, but PRO's was very difficult to follow because of the different fonts and styles (especially in round 3).
Arguments: pro did jot properly address the implausibility of ghostly intelligence and mechanisms of evolution to explain life. Moreover, there were several droped arguments that pro didn't address.
Sources: Pro didn't use a single source whereas con used book and Internet sources.

Maikuru, my condolences. I do a lot of debates about religion, but, yeah, it is almost no fun at all to read other people's debate about religion. I am thinking the debate I am having with bluesteel (Jesus was a doomsday cult leader vs. Jesus did not exist) may be an exception, since neither of us are religious and we develop the central issues of the debate about historical Christian origins.

I almost never read or vote on religious debates because of their inevitable repetitive nature and often overtly biased voting. That said, this one caught my interest and I was very pleased with its trajectory after the first few arguments. Alas, given the outcome, it seems I should have trusted my instincts.

How swiftly and sharply the tables were turned after an explicitly-unfair opening round. I am thinking maybe I should have used the last round to say, "I surrender the debate, Pro wins, vote Pro," as a test to see if Liquidus had any hope left.

Reasons for voting decision: Pros loses arguments for failing to address anything relevant Con stated. Pro claims that Con also did not address his arguments, particularly the Kalam argument, however Pro never made the argument in the first place. It is completely unacceptable to copy paste an entire argument then demand your opponent refute it. Pro also loses conduct for plagiarism in round 2. His rules were also incredibly abusive. I'd give Con 10 points if I could.

Reasons for voting decision: Had Pro taken full advantage of his opening round advantage and simply answered each of Con's rebuttals with sufficient - not even excellent - arguments, the debate would have been his. Unfortunately, Pro focused instead on non-issues and ignored Con's primary arguments. Pro's stance on unlabeled citations and lack of appropriate sourcing were also unsettling.

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